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A Jersey Wormian of the EigFileenth CentarY- 



BY JOHN BODINE THOMPSON, D. D. 



[Read before the New Brunswick Historical Club March i6, 1893.] 



Miihvny between New Hrunswick iiiul 
Melutlien the IravcUer crosses a slrcnm, 
too small at thai place to attract attention, 
yet worthy of notice. Its name is ' 'Ambrose's 
Brook." Rising near Pisciitaway-town, it 
flows, slowly but steadily, northwesterly 
Ihroiifjh grassy meadows nnlil it empties 
into ilie ISound Brook at the village of that 
name. 

Bound Brook if .w called because two 
centuries ago it bounded the Elizabeth- 
town patent on that side Ambrose's Brook 
is so railed from an early settler on the 
ferlile lands through which it meanders so 
quietly to its goal, whose name, I suppose, 
was Ambrose JIartin. The most remarka- 
ble thing about this self-contained and self- 
sufficient brook is that it presumes to par- 
allel itself with the Karitan river, and even 
to run contrary to it. Of course, it meets 
the common late of those in whom ambi- 
tion outruns ability, by being swallowed 
up at last in the swelling tide of its greater 
rival. 

On the banks of Ambrose's Brook was 
born more than a hundred and li fly years 
ago a child, the story of whose life I am 
now to tell. The family had been a nota- 
ble one in France. One of its members had 
written what Sir William Hamilton calls 
"The ablest and most Remarkable Treatise 
on the Philosophy of Government and 
L ■gislati'in," during the two thousand 
years that had elapsed between Aristotle 
and Montesquieu. lie was the Counsellor 
of the King of Fiance, and was consulted 
also by Klizabeth, of England, whom he 
advised to enlarge her kingdom by adopt- 
ing the King of Scotland, and marrying 
Leno.x. This advice, apparently, did not 



please her; for she did not follow it, but 
treated it as mere badinage, and. punning 
on his name, called its author "Mr. Badin," 
instead of "Bodin." A hundred years 
after that, another member of the family, 
bearing also the namc^ of Jean Bodin, went 
from France to London where he an<i his 
wife were naturalized, Octob;r 14, 1681. 
Soon after they came to the American 
colonies and settled among their kindred 
Huguenots on Stalen Island, where he died 
as early as 1095. I am not sure whether it 
was bis son or his grandson, who crossed 
over to the mainland at Perth Amboy, and 
made his way to the banks ot Ambrose's 
Brook, where he bought of the proprietors 
of East Jersey si.xly acres of land, July 23, 
173'3. Abraham Bodin, Bodieu or Bodine, 
as the name began now to be variously 
spelled and pronounced, married a Dutch 
girl, named Adrianlje Janse, and had nine 
children. The fifth of these was "Judik," 
to whom I have already alluded, born on 
the banks of Ambrose's Brook, March 17, 
1735. This generation had lost the lan- 
guage of their fathers, and had become 
i<ienlified with the Dutch among whom 
they dwelt. Judik Bodine probably never 
thought of herself other than as a Dulch 
girl, though, of course, she learned to 
speak English as well as Dulch. Undoubt- 
edly she enjoyed her child-life on tlie banks 
of the loitcrins brook, wa<ling in the pools, 
digging sweet -flag in the low-lying meadows, 
following her brothers and sisters at their 
play and aathering the fleur-de-lis that 
grew so plentifully there, all unconscious 
that it was the national flower of her an- 
cestors. When she was thirteen ycQis of 
age her older sister married, and Judik 



6S732 



was compdletl to take lier share of house- 
hold duly. The drive with the slow farm- 
horses to the church three miles beyond 
Bound Brook was long and tedious; but 
that was no reason for staying away, nor 
for neglecting the study of the catechism 
that she might recile it at proper inteivals 
to Dominie Prelinghuysen, by whom she 
had been baptized. At eighteen she stood 
before the church as one of the "Getuy- 
gen,"or sponsors, at the biiplism of her 
brother Peter's daughter, Elizabeth. And 
thus she continued discharging her various 
duties in the church and the family until 
she had reached the mature age of thirty- 
five. 

The Dutch in this country had now been 
under English rule for more than a century ; 
but they clung to the customs and usages 
of their fathers with characteristic tenacity. 
Especially was this true of the dwellers on 
the Rarinn who did not at all like tiie 
innovations of tlie English constantly 
crowding in upon them from New York ; 
and therefore they pusheit on fnrlher west. 
Abraham Bodine sold his farm on Am- 
brose's Brook and bouaht a larger one on 
the North Branch of the Raritan, and 
removed thither with his family. 

But others also could follow the "Road 
up Karitan" to the fertile tields along its 
branches; and among these "Interlopers," 
as they were called, was a Scotchman wlio 
took a fancy to Judik, and evinred a perti- 
nacity of purpose almo5l or quite equal to 
that of a J)ulchman. That he was not a 
Dutchman was rather his misfortune than 
his fault ; and he was an industrious and 
pious man, and forty years of age, five 
years older than Judik. To make a long 
story short, he succeeded in winning the 
heart and baud of the Dutch woman, ar.d 
for a few brief years they lived an idyllic 
life. His affection for her may he infei red 
from the fact that he was unwilling to nse 
alike her Dutch name of ".Judik," the cur- 
rent abridgement of It to "Jude," and the 
English form of "Judith." He called her 
"Juda." So he wrote her name in the 
little Bible he had brought with him frojn 
Scotland, so she continued to write it after 
his decease; and so it continues among her 
descendants to tliis day. 

By this time not only the lands on the 



Rarilan, but also those on its north and 
south branches were occupied. Midwa}', 
however, between these two branches was 
a stream about as large as Ambrose's 
Brook, uiwn which the young Hollanders 
had settled so numerously as to crowd out 
the earlier English purchasers and to give 
it the name of "HoUants Brook." which 
name it still bears. At the very fountain- 
head of this stream, where its waters issue 
from the h gliisl peak of the Kushetunk 
Mountains, (visible from Ambrose's Brook 
as from New Brunswick,) this married 
couple found a home; and there their only 
child was born, July 3, 1772. 

But the soil was not so fertde as that of 
the lowlands; nor was the tillaae so easy; 
and the new settlers listened eagerly to the 
wonderful stories told of "The Shemokem 
Country." The phrase designated the 
region for more than a hundred miles 
around the ancient Indian town of Slicmo- 
kcm at the juuclion of the north and west 
branches of the Susquehanna. Considera- 
ble numbers of Scutch and Irish Presbyte- 
rians wee already in that vicinity; and 
their fellow-conntrymen in the Dutch set- 
tlements, vvould not be loth to join them 
tliere. Many of the Dutch also, as I have 
already iotinialed, were quite ready to get 
further away from the encroachments of 
the English. Juda Bodine's cousin, Agnes, 
had already married a Scotchman, and 
gone with him to the new country. Glow- 
ing reports of its fertility came back to 
New .Jersey; and so, a little before the 
breaking out of the Revolutionary War, 
Juda Bodiiie and her husband, with others 
from the Raritan and its branches, decided 
to try their fortunes, also, in the wtsicru 
wilds. 

They located on the west branch of the 
Susquehanna, called by the Indians "Otzi- 
naclison," just beyond llie creek flowing 
into it from the north, knowu then, as now, 
by the name of " Loyal Sock," not far from 
the site of the present city of Williains- 
porl. The place selected for their resi- 
dence was on the edge of the upland, 
whence they could overlook the broad ex- 
panse of green stretching away to the river, 
not unlike the meadows near the mouth of 
Ambrose's Brook. 

It was an excellent situation. The river 



and tlic creek fiirnisliod sliad an(] salmon, 
as well as tisli of inferior fame. The for- 
est abounded with deer and bear and vari- 
ous kinds of smaller game. But the prin- 
cipal reason for selecting this precise spot 
was, doubtless, the few acres of clearing 
upon which the red men of the forest had 
raised their srantj' supplies of Indian corn. 
The thrifty husbandman at once set about 
enlarging the clearing by felling the huge 
pines for lumber to build his house and 
barn. After these were finished the stumps 
were grubbed up and dragged to the edge 
of the forest, where they formed a fence 
for the cleared land. The ground was 
ploughed and sown, and richly rewarded 
the labor bestowed upon it. The farmer's 
cattle and horses grazed upon the meadow ; 
bis barn was full; and the next j-ear's har- 
vest was rapidly growing into riiwness. 
Joyously, because successfully, he labored 
m the fields; Uis wife sang cheerily about 
her household work; and the little boy 
shared the out-door life of the father and 
the in-door life of the mother at will. 

Ill later years he used to tell bow, play- 
ing beliind the barn, he found a curiously 
constructed and fragrant flower of which 
neither father, nor mother, nor neighbors 
had ever seen the like. Not until several 
years after his return to New Jersey did 
he become acquainted with its name or its 
nature, for it was first introduced upon the 
Uarilan in the year 1800 under its now fa- 
miliar name of " red clover." 

What could be more delightful than this 
scene of pastoral felicity on the west branch 
of the Susquehanna. If human life is but 
a fraction at best, amid such surroundings 
that fraction was constantly increased, not 
so much by multiplying the numerator as by 
dividing the denominator. The wants of 
I he settlers in that happy valley were few, 
and easily supplied. It was certainly true 
fo them, what a favorite song of the day 
represented the British as saying of all the 
colonists: 

" They have no debts to pay ; 
Thoy flourisli like the lilies 
In North America." 

'■ Rt in Arcadia ego" — I, too, was a dweller 
ill Areadia, might be written of every one 
of them. 

But well docs the proverb say: "Count 



no man happy 'till ho dies." Most of the 
able-bodied men of the valley had gone to 
fight their country's battles on the plains of 
New Jersey. Aware of this fact, an expe- 
dition of three hundred white men and 
five hundred Indians came down the north 
branch of the Susquehanna and perpetra- 
ted the massacre of Wyoming on the third 
day of July, 1778. At Knawaholee, 
(where the city of Elmira now stands) a 
detachment of two hundred Indians, un- 
der the chief, Gucingeracton, left the main 
body and crossed over to the west branch. 

It cannot be said that the settlers were 
unwarned. Tue friendly Indian, Job Chil- 
loway, (whose name ought to be held in 
remembrance by their descendants), bad 
told tliein that such a visitation was to be 
expected. And now another friendly In- 
dian came hastily "down Sinnemahoning," 
with information of a company of fourteen 
Senecas close at hand and the whole two 
hundred not far away. Hurriedly the 
people betook themselves to the stockades 
they had erected in view of such an emer- 
gency. Juda Bodine fled with her bus- 
band and child to the enclosure at Muncy. 
seven miles away. They could carry with 
them only their fire-arms and their litllu 
family Bible. 

Once safe within the stockade, they be- 
gan to wonder whether they had not been 
too precipitate. The scouts sent out could 
discover no signs of Indians. The weather 
was rainy; and the confinement was irk- 
some. The Canny Scot began to regret 
that he had so suddenly abandoned his 
possessions. He determined to make an 
effort to bring off his cattle. Peter Sliufelt 
and William Wyckoft were willing to aid 
in the endeavor. It was past noon when 
I hey reached the house, which they fojnd 
precisely as it had been left. Tying their 
horses at the door, they entered, and be- ' 
gan to prepare themselves a meal. Sud- 
denly they were alarmed by a commotion 
among the horses, and, looking out, saw 
the fourteen Indians approaching from the 
barn, led by a Tory neighbor. Seiz- 
ing th^ir guns, they rushed for the coveit 
of the friendly trees, and were fired upon 
as they ran. Peter Shufelt fell, and died 
where he fell. The Scotchman stopped 
and returned the fire (in the vain hope to 



save his friend), and was himself shot by 
the second volley from the enemy. The 
bullet passed through his powder-horn, 
which burned at his sife as he lay a-dying. 
Both of the men were scalped and their 
bodies thrown outside the enc osure among 
tlie pine grubs. William Wyckoff reached 
the woods in a wounded condition and was 
finally captured. He was exchanged the 
next year and gave the details of the con- 
test. 

It was on the 10th of June, 1778, that 
Juda Bodine thus became a widow with a 
young child to care for and dei-titute. No 
wonder if she were at first in despair. No 
wonder that she turned down the leaf, in 
the Bible that had been her husband's, at 
the words of Job: 

Even today is my complaint bitter: 
My strolte is heavier tlian my groaning:. 

(It remains still turned down at that pas- 
sage. ) 

Under the care of her friend and neigh- 
bor, Robert Covenhoven, who was also a na- 
tive ot New Jersey, she floated safely down 
the river with lier boy to Sheinokem, and 
found safety there in Fort Augusta, then 
under the command of Col. Hunter. Prom 
his granddaughter I received one of the 
calthrops used in the defence of the fort 
and a medal taken from the body of one of 
its assailants. The calthrops were strewn 
thickly about the grass to pierce the moc- 
casined feet of those attempting the as- 
sault; and the medals were given to the 
Indian Chiefs who remained faithful to 
the King. The powder-magazine of the 
old fort may still be seen in the middle of 
the green field not far from the water's 
edge. 

As soon as practicable, Juda Bodine 
JDined a party returning to New Jersey. 
Her child was too small to make the jour- 
ney on foot, and loo largo to be carried in 
arms. The horses had luen lost on the 
ilay of her husban<rs death. But mother- 
wit is quick wit; and mother-love, a love 
that triumphs over all obstacles. Slie suc- 
ceeded in securing a little wagon, of the 
rudest construction, yet capable of holding 
the child; and Ibis vehicle she pulled 
through storm and sunshine, along the 
gorges, across the streams, through the 
beech woods, down the valley of the Li'- 



high, and over the Jersey hills to the place 
whence she had set out, at the liead of 
Hollants Brook. Three hundred miles the 
brave woman had dragged that little cart 
over hill and dale. But she and her boy 
were at home again among her friends. 
Fler return was like that of Naomi from 
the land of Moab. She "went out full,'' 
and the Lord had brought her " home again 
empty." The one tref sure which she still 
possessed, the only relic rescued from the 
destruction of her home by the heathen, 
was the little Bible. 

She was destitute, and none of her rel- 
atives were in a condition to render her 
more than a very limited assistance, even 
if she had been willing to receive it, for 
the devastations of war had been felt on 
the Raritan quite as severely as on the 
Susquehanna, as two or three instances 
may show. During her absence New Jer- 
sey had been the tramping ground of both 
the hostile armies. Thomas Paine, who 
accompanied Washington's army on the 
retreat across New Jersey, on arriving at 
Philadelphia had issued his American Crisis 
witli the article beginning: "These are the 
times that try men's souls." They were. 
The roads about New Brunswick are still 
red; but not so red as they were that dread 
November day when the march of the 
patriot array could be traced by the blood 
that oozed from their bare and bleeding 
feet. It is recorded that when Washing- 
ton saw the stains made by the blood ot 
William Lyon, a soldier of Middlesex, aa 
he was marching over the frozen ground, 
the great man checked his horse and said: 
" My brave boy, you deserve a better 
fate;" and the brave boy answered: 
"There is no danger of my feet freezing 
as long as the blood runs." 

And after those heroes had passed, their 
families were robbed by their pursuers. 
On Saturday, November 30, 177G, Gen. 
Ilovvc issued to all who should sign a decla- 
ration that they would henceforth be peace- 
able subjects of the King a Proclamation 
of Amnesty, granting them "a free and 
full pardon for the past." 

The next day a British officer was at J'is- 
cataway-town, receiving submissions and 
granting protections. Among those v\ho 
came thither to make submission was a 



mail from IVrtli Anilioy, named Samuel 
Diinl.ip. He had vvilli liiin his son, Will- 
iam, who urcw up to be an enthusiastic 
puliiot and a noted American painter and 
litUrnteur. It was he who jjainted the 
••rayon portrait of Washington when tlie 
General was writing liis farewell address 
at Kocl<y Ilill. In his conversational 
"Illsitory of New York" lie has told us 
what lie saw io tliis vicinity during the 
war. I quote : 

"How did the hostile army treat the 
inhabitants? 

"Some of tlie Yeomanry 'came in,' as it 
was, and, according to the proclamation 
issued by the Howes submitted and re- 
ceived paper protections; but most of the 
men retired and left tlieir property to the 
mercy of tlie enemy. It was my hap, tlien 
a little bov, to be in a village on llie route 
of tlie army, and I saw tlie process of plun- 
dering the houses in which old men, women 
and children had been left in confidence 
that British magnanimity would shield 
them. The plunderers were Hessian, I 
suppose ? Not one, on tins occasion. They 
were British Infantry; and Gen. Grant 
was in a house of the little place, (it was 
at Piscataway) receiving submissions and 
giving protections. It must have been 
a strange scene! It made an indelible 
impression on me. Not far from me stood 
a female follower of the camp, having 
charge of a musket, and guarding a pile of 
liousehold furniture, to which a soldier 
industriously added by bringing forth from 
a bouse, where the mistress and lier chil- 
dren stood weeping at the door, every 
article he could find, from the table and 
looking-glass to the tongs and shovel. 
Pots, kettles, women's clothing and feather- 
beds were by the same industry transferred 
from the owners, homes to various piles 
similarly protected. Here a soldier was 
seen issuing from a house, armed with a 
frying-pan and a gridiron; and there a 
camp follower liearing a mirror in ore 
hand and a lioltle in the oilier. What 
could soldiers do with feallier-beds? 

"Tiny ripped them open witli liieir bay- 
onets, strewed the ruad with their feathers, 
and their help-ma'es carefully presirved 
the ticking." "On the day I witnessed 
this scene," he adds, "Gen. Washington 



was posted at New Brunswick behind the 
Raritan; but the river was fordable, and 
his force altogether inadequate to oppose 
Cornwallis at the head of 8,000 veterans." 

That day w.is Sunday, December 1, 1776. 
That night Washington retreated to Prince- 
ton, and the next morning the British en- 
tered the city, which they held for more 
than six months. 

How Washington crossed and recrossed 
the Delaware, fought the battle of Prince- 
ton, marched through Somerset, and went 
into winter quarters at Morristown, Janu- 
ary 6, 1877, is well known. On the eigh- 
teenth, he wrote to Gen. Schuyler: "The 
enemy by two lucky strokes, at Trenton 
and Princeton, have been obliged to aban- 
don every part of Jersey except Brunswick 
and Amboy, and the small tract of country 
between them, which is so entirel}- ex- 
hausted of supplies of every kind, that I 
hope, by preventing them from sending 
their foraging parties to any great distance, 
to reduce them to the utmost distress, in 
the course of this winter." 

This hope was only partially realized ; 
for the British occupied also six-mile-run 
and Middlebush, and devastated the whole 
country on both sides of the Raritan, "at 
tunes," Dunlap tells us, "tearing down 
fences and out-houses for fuel, or bringing 
in rebel eows and oxen from the adjacent 
country; and sometimes bringing in plun- 
der apparently less necessary for the subsist- 
ence of anarmy, such as chairs, tables, 
bureaus, bedsteads, and looking-glasses, 
piled upon liaggage-wagons and regularly 
guarded by an escort." 

The very next day after Washington 
wrote his letter to Gen. Schuyler, the 
Queen's rangers went up to Bound Brook 
and robbed Ennis Graham of the contents 
of a box which he had buried in his barn, 
securing thus a considerable booty of 
"cash, plate, watches and jewelry." 

It was on their way back from this raid, 
or from another like it, that George Ander- 
son was awakened from sleep by the pas- 
sage of the British light horse. He was 
the son of a Scolisli diver who, tiring of 
such a life in his native land, had come to 
the colonies at least as early as 1684. His 
son was now living upon the paternal farm 
of 2.'50 acres, on the river bank, a part of 



wiiicli has been latterly known as "the 
McClintock place" anil "the Jancway 
place." He had married Metje Van Wick- 
clen, the daughter of the owner ot an adja- 
cent 250 acres ; whose marriage outfit in- 
cluJed a number of pewter-plalteis, and 
other dishes of the same material, consti- 
tuting a large and complete "dinner-set." 
Oca of these was more than two feet in 
diameter. In my youth I had tlie privilege 
on more than one occasion of sitting down 
to a feast spread upon the groaning table 
covered with this bright and shining pre- 
revolutionary plate. I remember ^lending 
much of the time while waiting for my 
share of llie turkey, in trying to decipher 
the exquisitely engraved monogram of 
Metje Van Wiekelen upon the edge of the 
largest of the " pewter-platters." 

She was the paternal grandmother of the 
writir's maternal grandmother. Martha 
Anderson. George Anderson heard tlie 
light horsemen pass liis door in the middle 
of the night; but thought it the part of 
prudence to lie still till morning. At 
dawn of day, however, he was out in the 
road, inspecting the track of tlie marauders, 
and was rewarded by the discovery of a 
walcli. It was not one of those stolen 
from Ennis Graham, it was an English 
officer's walcli. It had a small minute- 
hand, and a still smaller hour-hand. But 
the second-hand was very large, showing 
that it had been made specially for noting 
the speed of horses. The finder regarded 
it as conlralKindof war and appropriated it 
10 his own use. It is now owned by one 
of his descendants. Prof. Thompson, of 
Princeton College, ana is slill a pretty 
good waich. 

One of the orders issued by Sir William 
Howe declared that "all salted and meal 
provisions which may be judged to exceed 
the quantity necessary for the subsistence 
of an ordinary family shall be considered 
a magazine of the enemy, an<l seized for 
the King, and given to the troops as a 
saving for the public." 

Thus the pickling tubs and garners of 
every Jersey farmer became lawful prize, 
the captor being judgj of the quantity 
necessary for the subsistence of the family. 
Under this o.der the tories on the upper 
waters of the Karitan were as active as the 



British nearer its mouth. Gen. Greene 
wrote to his wife: "The tories are the 
cursedest rascals among us, tlie most wick- 
ed, villainous and oppressive. They lead 
Ihe nlentless foreigners to the houses of 
their neighbors, and strip the poor women 
and childnn of everything they have to 
<.at and wear. " 

Among the families thus raided was that 
of Colonel David Scliani, a friend and 
neighbor of Juda Bodine's when she lived 
on [loUants Bidok. He was one of the 
colonial land-holders who kept a pack of 
twenty or thirty hounds for fox hunting, 
and raised horses with which to compete 
in the Long Island races, even down to 
sixty years ago. His wife was at home 
alone with her children; but she was equal 
to the occasion. When a neighbor, on his 
way to protect his own home, rushed in to 
announce the approach of a band of Tories, 
she mounted the most valuable horse and 
galloped iiway with him to a ravine in the 
woods where she hid him securely. Re- 
turning, she had lime only to turn another 
very valuable hoi'se loose in the road, where 
tlie marauders in vain tried to catch him. 
Wlien they reached the house they found 
the Dutch woman standing at her cellar- 
door, pilch fork in band, to defend her 
meat barrels. Tlireats and attempts to pass 
or seize her were all in vain. They were 
not quite willing to kill her for what they 
could get more easily from some other cel- 
lar; and so she saved her food for her 
children. 

Two years of such experiences as these 
had deprived Juda Bodine's friends, as I 
have said, of ability to provide for her. 
She was without means of support save 
such as she should find in herself. But she 
had inherited the virtues of generations of 
struggle with adversities, civil and relig- 
ious; and her life for nearly half a century 
hail been such as to develop her inborn 
strength of character and fit her for the 
future upon which she was now entering. 

She was named after the Jewish widow 
whose wisdom and courage had given a 
future to her people; and the better 
courage of this Christian widow now 
rose in like manner to the height of the oc- 
casion. She had only her son to live for; 
but she would live for liim in such a way 



as to innkf him wnitliy "f lii's nnccstry ; 
and she .iiil. Arciislomoil to toil, slie be- 
came working houskeepcr for the aged 
.Tacohiis Vandervcer at Ids plantation on 
Hnllanls Brook, two miles cast of the spot 
where her hoy was horn. 

Here she made a home for herself and her 
child, and sent him to pcliool while he was 
yet too younj; for manual labor. After that 
she took care that he should become famil- 
iar with all manner of work on the farm 
and in due season, that she micht make 
hira independent of untoward events, hound 
him prentice to Pietro Mazzini, the Italian 
tailor.' 

Abonl that time Dr. .Jacob .Tenninjs who 
afterwards became a preacher in Virginia, 
was be!;inning the pr.irlice of medicine at 
Hollanls Brook; and .luila Bodine for some 
reason, found it necessary to sue him at the 
law for one pound, fifteen shillings and 
six pence, which amount she recovered, ac- 
cording to the testimony of Esquire Peter 
Bruner's docket, lhoii|i;ti no further partic- 
ulars of the transaction are now known. 

Leaving Hollants Brook, she obtained em- 
ployment for a short time with Peter 
Whorley who kept the big stone tavern 
just west of the place where the village of 
Rarilan now stands. The house had been 
buill early in the century by a noted law- 
yer named Peregrine La Grange, whose 
properly was confiscated because he adher- 
ed to the Crown. It was bousht at auction 
by a still more noted lawyer, William Pat- 
terson, who had lived at New Brunswick 
when he was a boy. He was graduated in 
1703 at Princeton, where Aaron Burr 
learned to know him, and other law stud- 
ents afterward lived with him in the big 
stone house while pursuing their studies 
under his direction. Mr. Patterson was a 
member of the convention that framed the 
constitution of the United States; was a 
Senator from New Jersey in tlie First 



■*It 13 not Itnown that Pietro beloiiKed to tlie same 
family wliicti a century later gave to tlie world tlio 
cniiutnt state^^man, .losepli Mazzini, tmt he w.is 
ceitainly a diplomatist in liis way His quondam 
prentice would sometimes tell in after years liow 
poi>r Pietro, unable to obtain in this bleaker clime 
the mild wine^ to which be had been accustomed in 
bis native land, wasfuin to solace himself as best he 
c mid with Jersey whiskey. On one occasion having 
taken too much of his now favorite l>everage, his 
hand was unsteady, and, in working upon a vest for 



Congress; was Governor of New Jersey 
and after that a Judge of the Supreme 
Court of the United States. The citj of 
Paterson was named after him in the year 
1800. Many men who afterward became 
eminent in different parts of the country 
were among the law students in this house. 
I remember with '"hat reverence I looked 
in my youth upon a mansion which had 
been the home of manv great men. 

After the war it fell into the hands of 
Peter Whorlev. He was a man of property, 
and of a certain kind of influence. He seems 
to have been a constable, as well as an inn- 
keeper, and to have discharged his duties 
with a zeal born of innate cruelty. 

Indeed, he is remembered chiefly for his 
cruelty to negro slaves. " Any negro found 
five miles from home it was the duty of 
these oBicers to arrest, and to flog with a 
whip into the thongs of which fine wire 
was plaited. For this service the owners 
were obliged to pay the constables five 
shillings, which materially augmented the 
income of these officials, and added largely 
to the value and importance of the posi- 
tion." 

Peter Whorley was unusually zealous in 
the discharge of such duties. Many of the 
blacks living up the river bad wive? owned 
by planters in the neighborhood of New 
Brunswick and the way thither lay past 
Peter Whorley's door. He was known far 
and wide for the persistency with which 
he would watch for negroes passing by, 
and punish them according to law. And 
lie was equally cruel to his own slaves. 
His method of " breaking them in," as he 
called it, was told by Juda Bodine to her 
son, and from his son the story came to 
me. With club in hand he led the slave 
he had just bought out to the chicken- 
house, and commanded him to jump over 
the building. When the man declared his 
inability to accomplish so impossible a 

a customer, he cut one of the pockets all the way to 
the buttons. Nothing daunted, when the vest was 
finished he divided the pocket into two.one'being of 
the usual size, and the other, next the buttons, 
very small. When the young man came for bis vest, 
the bland Italian explained to bis satisfaction that 
the small pocket was a device recently introduced to 
relieve the anxiety always felt for a " button-bole 
boquet" because of its insecurity, by pl.ieing it in 
safety in the place thus provided lor it aod known 
as the " posy pocket.". 



thing, without a word lie was struck sense- 
less to the ground. When heUiad recov- 
ered sufficiently to stand upon his feet 
again the command was repeated, and 
when the victim opened his mouth to 
remonstrate, again the blow fell and again 
the poor man lay prostrate. Struggling to 
his feet, he heard the command for the 
third time, jumped against the building 
and again fell bruised and bleeding to the 
earth. Thereupon the master declared 
himself satisfied, saying: "When I tell 
you to do a thing, do it; or try to do it at 
any rate." 

Escaping from contact with such a brute, 
Juda Bodine found a home in the family 
of Esquire Jacob Degroot, not far from the 
mouth of Ambrose's Brook. Steadily from 
the day of her husband's death had she 
been making her way toward the place 
where she was I orn ; and now she stood 
again by the stream on whose banks she 
had played when a child. 

What changes had come to her mean- 
while! As she thduglil of all that she had 
suffered is it strange that she should moan : 

Lover and friend hast tbou put far from me, 
And mine acquaintance into darkness ! 

But presently the murmuring waters 
would soothe her perturbed spirit into 
peace with the musical monotony of the 
song they sang. It was a song without 
words, a song sung only to the souls of 
such as have ears to hear, a song that wail- 
ed till our own day for an interpreter to 
translate it into language intelligible to our 
common-place experience: 

I steal by lawns and grassy plots ; 

I glide by hazel-covers, 
I move the sweet forget-me-nots 

That grow for happy lovers : 
I slip, I slide, I glance, I glow, 

To join the brimming river; 
For men may come and men may go. 

But I go on forever. 

■ With many a curve my banks I fret 

By many a field and fallow ; 
And many a fairy foreground set 

With willow-weed and mallow. 
And liven all my plants, and flow 

To join the brimming river ; 
For men may come and men may go. 

But I go on forever. 

I murmur under moon and stars 

In branching wildernesses ; 
I linger by my shingly bars ; 



I loiter round my cresses : 
And out again I curve, and How 

To join the brimming river ; 
For men may come and men may go, 

But I go on forever. 

And so she fpent there the remainder of 
her days in quietness and peace, blessed 
and a blessing. She had the comfort of 
knowing that her son was respected and 
esteemed by all who knew him. She vi.'it- 
ed him on his plantation in the neighbor- 
hood in which he was born, and held his 
son in her motherly arms. She tasted of 
the fruit of her labors and was satisfied. 

It was OG the seventeenth day of June, 
1796, that this son paid the last sad tribute 
to her memory, at Bound Brook, and, re- 
turning to his home, gave her name to his 
oldest daughter born while he was standing 
by the oi)en grave. 

The only legacy his mother left him, be 
side the innate ethical courage which had 
manifested itself in her life, was the Bible 
which had been her husband's companion 
during the long and tedious crossing of the 
Atlantic, and amid the people here whose 
language he understood not; which had 
given the keynote to their family life on 
Hollants Brook and on the Loyalsock; 
which had comforted her in her extremity 
and taught her to put her trust, and not in 
vain, in the God of the fatherless and the 
widow. 

It was customary in those days for a 
woman who could write to inscribe her 
name in her Bible, with the added s'ale- 
ment that "God gave her grace therein to 
look," etc. This pious formula of covert 
self-laudation she turned into a prayer and 
wrote after her name: 

Juda Thomson, her book ; 

God give her grace therein to look 1 

Not only to look, but to understand. 

Every leaf of this book is water-staineil, 
probably by the exposures of tlie memora- 
ble journey from the Susquehanna to ilie 
Kaiitan. The old calf of the binding is 
worn into holes by long use; and onlv 
pieces of the ancient clasps remain inT- 
b<-dded in one side of the thick cover. 
The leaf which contains the family record 
is brilllc, and begins to crumble at the 
edges. Not much longer, brobabiy, can 
the venerable rdic be preserved. But the 
memory of such an ancestry and the imma- 
nent moral life transmitted Iherctrcim 
should ennoble character to the latest gen. 
eration. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 801 967 2 



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